Zandra was in her chambers with her maid, Micheel.
    “Audience?” Zandra exploded at the word. “What’s he want an audience with me? I’m his own daughter!” She didn’t mean to get after her maid, but that’s the way it came across.
    “I’m sorry, Micheel,” she apologized. “I know this mess with the Surrites isn’t your fault. Now come here and help me decide what to wear.”
    “Yes, my dear,” Micheel replied in her old voice.
    Zandra rocked her head from side to side. “Yes, my dear,” she echoed in a cackle. “Don’t you know that irritates me?”
    “Yes, my . . .”
    “Micheel,” Zandra warned in imitation of the older woman’s voice. “Watch your tongue, or I shall have to slice it out!.”
    Micheel withdrew, tears in her eyes. Zandra smirked after the old one, and reached for one of the nicer robes. Rich fur always felt good against her bare skin, but her hand stayed . . . as she thought about what she’d just done. Why not play a trick on father?
    Yes, why not? An impish glint crept into her eyes.

    Zandra’s father didn’t like to wait. Not when he’d made up his mind. He was pacing the floor when a cackle drew his attention to the doorway of the great hall.
    “By the purple skies,” he muttered as he saw her. Some old hag, one ancient hand on an old walking stick, was shuffling into the hall. Robed and hooded, she was.
    “Aye, old man,” the voice cracked as she appeared to steady her gait with the stick.
    Tagg eyed the stick with mild curiosity. Twisty and crooked, as must be the old hag’s body. “And what is this that enters my audience chamber unbidden?” he asked with a mild, but flat tone.
    “Old, eh, Pawkeep,” the voice returned.
    “And?”
    “Seeking to speak of peace with thy daughter, oh Baron.”
    “Hm.” Tagg noticed the slight hesitation. It didn’t pay to not notice such things.
    “And of my daughter? What is she to thee?” he questioned.
    “It is not I, oh Baron, that seeks her,” came the reply, again with a slight hesitation.
    Tagg motioned for Darryn, one of his guard, to join him.
    “Yes, my lord,” Darryn whispered to his summons.
    “What do you make of this . . . ?” Tagg motioned quietly.
    “A soothsayer, perhaps?”
    Tagg scratched his beard. “Perhaps. What would she want with “Zandra?”
    The guard glanced toward the hag. “There’s something amiss, I think, my lord.”
    “Aye, Darryn. Stand close.”
    “Sire!”
    Tagg rose and approached the hag, with Darryn not far from his side. He tried to peer into the cowled face, but it was well hidden in the folds of the hood.
    “Bare thy head, old woman,” Darryn commanded.
    The hag didn’t stir. Darryn glanced toward Tagg, who was standing behind the hag, appraising her with his practiced eye. He nodded.
    Darryn reached toward the hood, but was stopped by a firm “No!” from the hag. “Touch me not, child,” the ancient voice spoke. “For I have dreamed and this one is not for thee.”
    Tagg glanced toward Darryn. Taking a tour around the hag had revealed little, but what he did notice was enough. Tagg returned to the throne and motioned Darryn to him.
    “There is something of substance under that cloak, my friend,” Tagg confided. “She is not as she seems.”
    “She?”
    Tagg nodded. “I think . . .” Tagg didn’t finish his thought. As he watched, the hag sagged a bit. His eyes narrowed.
    “What is it, my lord?”
    Tagg slowly stood, eyes concentrating on the old hag. Something about the creature was familiar. He frowned at the thought. Visions crept into his head, and the robs fell away from his sight. There stood . . .
    Tagg shut his mouth and smiled. “I bid thee enter my inner chamber, old one.”
    “Aye, that I can do,” the ancient voice returned.
    Can do? Tagg smiled inwardly. He could play this game, too.
    “My lord,” Darryn said. “Would you have us in as well?”
    His guard knew the rules. They would not enter the inner chamber unless summoned or it was an emergency. “Not necessary, my friend,” Tagg returned softly as he pushed a lever on the back of his throne. The counterweights would open the door. In a louder voice, he said, “Come, ancient of days. Come visit an old man and tell me of thy desires for my daughter.”
    The old creature in robes shuffled forward and slowly and carefully made her way up the steps. Tagg glanced at Darryn and saw him tempted to help. “Guard,” Tagg ordered. “Stand down and wait for my return.”
    Darryn looked incredulously at him. Tagg shook his head in return and held out his hand toward the hag.
    Soft flesh, like that of cream and honey. Not ancient leather, cracked with age, gripped his hand solidly. Almost there, thought Tagg.
    As they entered the chamber and Tagg closed the door, a chuckle escaped his lips.
    The old hag whirled upon him. “Mock me not, old man,” she said.
    Tagg laughed all the louder. “Nice try, Zandra, but it will take more than a bit of sorcery to fool your own father.” His grin lit his entire face as he reached up and pushed back the hood.
    Zandra stomped her foot. “Father!”
    “You’re good, Zandra. You had Darryn fooled. He wanted to enter with us, to protect me from the wiles of an ancient soothsayer.”
    Zandra glared back at him.
    “Where’d you get the idea?” His smile disappeared. “Not a real Surrite.”
    “Father!” Zandra shook her head in denial. “I came upon the idea of tricking you when I was chiding Micheel for her foolish ways.”
    “Chided?”
    “Well, sort of . . .”
    “Yes.”
    She looked at him with curiosity. “How’d you know it was me?”
    “The same, daughter of mine, that you can blind others to your beauty,” he smiled. “What you hide, I see. Just as I am never able to hide anything from you.”
    “Father, what are you saying?”
    “That it is time you knew the truth of who and what you are. Do you remember the ancient stories of legends that your mother and I used to tell you.”
    “Aye, and to frighten one such as I,” Zandra chided. “With such tales of ancient curses on our land, you’d scare the wits out of most any child.”
    “But you?”
    “Me? They were wondrous, but I couldn’t let you know that.”
    Tagg smiled. “And why not?”
    “Because you and mother might quit telling them.”
    Tagg stroked his beard and thought of those wondrous times. How he and his wife, already past their prime, had conceived of such a beautiful girl child. Their love had waxed strong in the peaceable little babe of golden hair and fair skin. Yet, when she was barely five, his wife left him, alone to raise the child by himself. Her death had barely bothered Zandra outwardly, yet as she grew, tears would sometimes well up as if from a natural spring of water.
    “Father?”
    “Huh? Oh, sorry.”
    Zandra put her arms around her father and gave him a hug. “I love you, daddy.”
    He stroked her hair, which still carried the golden color of her childhood. “I love you too, child.”
    “Now,” she pulled away from him. “Why is it that you must see me?”
    Tagg sighed heavily. “The Surrites,” he replied simply, looking at the floor.
    “You’ve had a vision?”
    He glanced at her, sharply. “Vision? No.” He turned away toward a window and replied, “Just a concern.”
    “Why the concern, then, if no vision?”
    She was so sure of herself. “Come here,” he commanded. “Drop the robe and come here.” He pulled aside a hanging to reveal of full- length mirror.
    She hesitated.
    “Come,” he beckoned. “What is wrong with you, child. It is only a mirror.”
    Shrugging, she came forward and faced the mirror. Her beauty was apparent in her eyes, and the way she held herself.
    “The robe does nothing for you. Shed it.”
    “As you wish.” She reached up and undid the ties, and shed the black robe of the old woman. Underneath, she wore . . .
    Her father cleared his throat. “I – I’m sorry, Zandra.” He started to put his own cloak around her, to hide her nakedness.
    She pushed it to one side. “It is I, father, as you have always seen me. There are no others.”
    Tagg hesitated. He was embarrassed to see his daughter as such, for it had been years – before his wife had died, that he had looked upon her natural beauty. Fair skinned, pure, like that of a goat’s milk.
    Realizing that this was what the Surrites were after, he said nothing for a moment, then, “Maybe so, but this is what I fear most.”
    “That someone will see me such as I am? Or like this?”
    A mist filled the room and as it cleared, it revealed a shriveled old woman, with breasts barely remaining after many years before the earth. The body was thin, almost emancipated, crooked and humped at the back.
    “No,” Tagg replied. “It pains me to see thee thusly.”
    “But father, look upon yourself.”
    Tagg looked and saw another face, one not familiar, but older, more ancient than his already advancing years.
    “Do you think the Surrites will recognize us or desire us if we are as this?” the old woman said.
    “That is not how I see thee,” Tagg said. “Nor will it be as the Surrites see thee.”
    “Pshaw,” she spat. “They hunt for someone younger, of brighter spirit.” She held up her hands, gnarled in the ways of many days, knuckles large and painful, even to look upon. Her spindly legs bowed and bent, barely held to the floor by bony feet. “Are these limbs the limbs of a young maiden?”
    Tagg remained silent.
    “Look!” Shrieked the old woman. She shoved her hand before his eyes. “Take me, feel me.” She pushed herself into his arms.
    Loose flesh barely hid the bones beneath. Ribs barren of fat, and scarcely holding the flesh. The hands worn smooth, but not full, like his daughter’s. He stared and felt, feeling her soft abdomen and tissue-thin skin.
    “What are thee?” Tagg said, shaken to his soul. This was not his daughter, but someone masquerading . . .
    The mist filled in around them, and beneath his hands, he felt flesh thicken and firm, breasts fill, but not with the heaviness of one who gives suck. He blinked his eyes and again beheld the natural beauty of his daughter.
    “How?” he asked, sobered by what he had felt and seen.
    “It is the gift, father. I have dreamed the dreams of the stories of my youth, and seen for myself with these eyes, the legends of our future, my future.” She bent to pick up her robes and slipped into them, again hiding her perfect body from his gaze.
    “Your future?”
    “Aye, and that of my child, Tiara.”
    “You name her?” he asked incredulously.
    “And that of Jon, the Cleric from another world, that can slip between. For he is the chosen one, that will bring the sky people.”
    “By the gods,” Tagg swore and felt his way to the bed. He was at a loss for words. “How?” he asked as he sank into its softness.
    “By the night visions . . .”
    “They are but fanciful . . .”
    “Dreams? I think not, for I can see them while awake as well.”
    “A, a waking dream?”
    “Nay, father. A day vision. It comes upon me when I least expect it.”
    “At a dangerous time, mayhaps?”
    “Nay again, father. Never when I am with others, or doing anything but sitting idle.”
    Tagg smiled. “Idling away the time with a day vision. More like a wish vision.”
    “Not of death, surely.”
    He sobered. “No, not of death,” he responded.
    “The Surrites will not be, father. For they will be defeated in battle soon enough.”
    He looked sharply at her.
    “Not for me, but for your honor, they will battle. For the legends speak of us. I am in the legends and he will protect me.”
    “He?” He frowned, not knowing what to say.
    “Jon, the child of a single sun. But hush now, my father.” She came forward, then, and pressed her hand against his forehead. “Close your eyes, and I will show you the dream – the dream of the legend.”
    His eyes drooped at her command and immediately he saw a great gray expanse, nothing to mark or separate heaven from earth. “The Plains,” she said.
    Before his eyes, a body materialized, and dropped the gray ground. “That is he, the Cleric.” Weapons materialized around him. A short sword and crossbow. “His weapons.”
    “Who?” Tagg got out.
    “A stranger from a land with one star, not two, like ours. He comes with strange accent.”
    Tagg sat, watching, but the stranger didn’t stir.
    Another vision appeared before his eyes. It was dark, but not dark. A room, not unlike a bed chamber.

    In the predawn light, the body on the bed stiffened. Moments later, it turned to one side. Near the bed lay the backpack, crossbow, and short sword.
    As more light crept into the room, beads of sweat appeared on the face of the sleeper-dreamer. In his imagination, the man heard the noise of escaping air... smelled a peculiar odor... saw blood red... deep blue sky... a great height... and felt the sensation of... falling...
    Sensations overwhelmed him as the images he saw were not those of a dream, but those of one as living in a dream. The colors were vivid, the smells overpowering, and the sounds deafening.
    When the sleeper stood, he (and it was a man) would reach a height of about six feet. He was muscular, but not in the sense of having the kind of muscles developed by a body-builder. Instead, he had the type of long muscles that show little definition, but have a lot of power. His face, even while asleep and tormented by the vision, was strong, but not overly handsome. His name was Jon-than. He was from a world that circled a single, white star in 288 days. A pair of moons circled his world every 36 days. And this pair rotated about a common axis of their own.
    “Such knowledge,” Tagg mumbled as the vision played out before him.
    His religious order observed two days of fasting and prayer out of twelve. And those twelve days made a week. There were 8 months in the year, marked by the appearance of the twin moons.
    But now the man was in a different world. A land of the double shadow. Two suns shone upon the hills and lake surrounding the village Tagg. The week had seven days, all bearing strange names. The year was longer and it had more months.
    And the vision that occupied the sleeper’s vision. It was more of a nightmare, except that the realism could not be denied.
    Jon had been taught how to detect the dreams of one’s mind and the visions of his god. This was no dream. It was a vision. And this is what Jon saw.
    Hissing reptiles – he wasn’t sure whether they had legs or not, but he saw the vivid colors of the scales. He was in their midst. His powers revealed no clues as to their intent. But he felt no fear, either.
    Jon had been taught and had learned for himself (for the Ninth Master had induced several visions during his training) that visions were to be observed. Nothing in a vision could harm him. But the vision would reveal important warnings or provide a foreboding of events yet to come. Only the foolhardy ignored visions.
    As Jon turned to look behind him, he found himself at the edge of a great precipice. The hissing sounds gave wave to the whistling of the wind, which was now whipping about him. He saw the spread of a blue- black sky above him, through which he could see a few of the brightest stars. Extending off into the distance and far below he could see a swampland, with patches of bright green growth in the midst of the blue-black bubbling muck.
    As he leaned forward to look further, a bloody hawk (he thought it was blood) fell/dove/tumbled toward the swamp. As Jon watched, the distance between him and the hawk did not grow. He suddenly realized that he, too, was falling toward the fetid, expansive gunk. But this fall was not one controlled by the forces of gravity. Instead, the fall had the feel of movement through the mists of Eth-er on the Plain of Du-rrah. The feel of the wind whipping him was now gone, but the smell of the fetid, putrid, rotting mess below him was growing stronger.
    Down, down he fell/tumbled, always with the bloody hawk (now he was sure it was blood) before him. As his fall took him close to his destination, the surface erupted with great tendrils of living muck reaching upward to encompass his body. A great open maw formed out of ground, into which now dripped the bright, gray-green puss of the living, fetid swamp. It was toward this black maw that he and the bird were drawn.
    Struggle – the mind is a stranger/friend. Regardless of all the teaching and training, the mind’s powers are remarkable. And as Jon looked, the natural instincts of his mind took over and started a struggle with the tendrils of living swamp. As he struggled, the tendrils turned into brightly colored green and purple vines, bearing bright red, orange, and yellow barbs.
    Pain – and blood, bright red blood blended with the thorns and vines. Weakness – not in body or mind... the vine snapped! It broke in two. Here, there, everywhere, now, as if breaking of its own weight, the vine with brightly colored thorns disintegrated.
    Jon, still above the maw, watched it close and become a face attached to a body with no appendages, like a snake that is not a snake because it-has-feathers-on-it. The snake/bird turned and faced Jon, and asked, “Who?”
    The brightly feathered shape changed before Jon’s wondering gaze. The snake/bird that is not a bird, became a biped, like a feathered ape wearing a snake’s head. Its mouth opens... and opens some more, and opens still more. Red/Orange scorpions run across the tongue as if they were scurrying across a hot, sandy pit. Some reach the edge and fall into... oblivion.
    The gaping mouth closed to reveal a man, with an indistinct face, sitting on a throne. His royal robes flow to the floor, which have turned to glass, reflecting the personage on the throne. Jon forced movement within the vision closer but he still could not make out the face.
    Tagg strained and saw . . . the man on the throne. It looked familiar. It should. It was he.
    Tagg’s eyes snapped open. He pushed Zandra’s hand away. The vision troubled him. What did it mean? He looked up at his daughter, her proud-featured face before him.
    “I am in that vision,” he said.
    Zandra looked at him with widening eyes. “How?” I did not see you there, father.”
    “On the throne. The man on the throne.”
    Zandra giggled. “Oh, that is silly. There is no throne. Did you not see the night sky’s starry fields wink out? Then, one-by-one, they come back, until they filled the sky with a gray light?”
    “I saw a great gray featureless plain. It is called Du-rrah.”
    “And no sky people landing not far from here, where there is an open field? The flying ship they came in, split in two?”
    “A great swamp, Zandra. A living, putrid swamp, filled with the puss of a thousand wounds.”
    “Not our daughter, one of fair skin, and me as old, but in reality not much different than myself as I am now?”
    Tagg reached out and gently took his daughter’s hand and encompassed it about with his own. “No, daughter,” he said softly. “It appears that the gods reveal to us many differences.”
    Zandra nodded with a tilt of her head. “Perhaps it is so. Perhaps you are seeing what the fighter-who-heals sees.”
    “Fighter-who-heals? This Cleric?”
    Zandra nodded.
    “One of the Surrites?”
    “Nay, father. This vision – these visions are much later in time. Besides, they are nothing?”
    Tagg frowned at her. “How can you say that? You’ve heard the noise of the expedition to their temple?”
    Zandra laughed. “Most assuredly, but should I believe it?” she intoned.
    “And why shouldn’t you?”
    “Oh father, you think I, your own daughter, should be so naive?”
    Tagg rocked back on his feet. “Naive? Yes. But what of the reports – do you not believe?”
    “Those tales of women without arms or legs. How would they live?”
    “Do you not know of the beggars in the streets, Zandra?”
    “Oh I’ve seen the beggars. Better they be dead.”
    “And not the daughters that were so cruelly stolen from our village?”
    Zandra turned away and shrugged. The arguments meant nothing to her. But that didn’t put off Tagg.
    “Have you not picked up at least something, daughter?”
    “Yes, father,” she replied in a tone that reminded him of her mockery.
    “Perhaps so. Now, what of the Surrites?”
    “Oh,” Zandra replied. “Them. They are nothing.”
    “Nothing? How can you say that, daughter?”
    “Because I know. The day visions do not lie.”
    “What of this, this fighter who heals? Suppose he is of the Surrites?”
    Zandra laughed at that. “Oh silly, silly father. Would I not know that which I have seen and felt for this man? After all, he is the chosen one.”
    Tagg nodded grimly. Nothing was going to sway his daughter’s opinion on the matter. Not now. Not with that – the legend of the cleric and the sky people and the sky that became not. What of it? He and his wife used to tell their little Zandra the wondrous tales and now? Well, he had asked for it, he supposed.
    Noise of a disturbance reached their ears. Tagg glanced toward the passageway back to the great hall. He rose and walked swiftly to the hidden passage. An old woman came up beside him. “They will not see me as I am,” she cackled. Zandra had assumed her disguise.
    They stepped from behind a hangings into the great hall. Darryn was there, with two other guards and a young man, fighting off bare-headed, robed men.
    “The Surrites,” Tagg muttered. “How?”
    “They made their way in by stealth,” Darryn yelled, parrying away the thrust of one of the priests.
    Tagg pushed his daughter, the old hag, behind him, and reached for his long sword at its place next to the throne.
    “It must have been her, my lord,” Darryn yelled as he pushed his tormentor back against one of the feasting tables.
    “Nay, friend Darryn. I know this one,” Tagg replied as he went to his friend’s aid. Together, they managed to overcome Darryn’s attacker.
    As the body of the priest dropped to the ground, clutching Tagg’s sword to his chest, Tagg said, “Sound the alarm. Call out the guards and rid us of this evil.”
    “Aye, my lord,” Darryn said as he headed for the entrance.
    Tagg bent to withdraw his sword, but as he did so, the priest stabbed him with a dagger.
    “Uh,” Tagg grunted at the pain in his ribs.
    “Father!” shrieked Zandra, as she saw what happened.
    Pain. Terrible pain worked its way up his chest, across it and down his arms. His legs no longer supported him, as he dropped to his knees. The pain. It was terrible.
    Zandra grabbed her father as he fell to his knees. He was dead weight, but she kept him from totally collapsing. The dagger must have been long, for in penetrated deeply into his chest. Tears filled her eyes and his own glazed over.
    “Father,” she said more quietly. Outside, the alarm was sounding and trumpets blaring as the guard was called out. But it was too late. Zandra knew it as Tagg failed to take a breath.
    His head lolled forward, and she eased him down into a sitting position. But there was no hope. He was dead as he sat on the ground. She gently lay him down and looked upon her own hands. They were still the hands of an old woman.
    Silently, she sat there with him, weeping. The battle raged around them, as she built up a shell of protection. But she could do nothing more. Tagg was dead. Her father had left her. He had feared for her, yet it was he that was to die under the hands of the Surrites.
    Sadness, then anger welled up inside her. She felt like she would explode. She looked up and saw a young man fighting for his life next to one of her father’s guards. They were battling three of the priests.
    “Apothnesko aphesis huios o kakos,” she cursed in the ancient tongue just as one of the priests was about the strike the young man with a mighty blow.
    Something happened. No one was quite sure, but the bald-headed priests dropped their swords.
    “Kill them,” Zandra shrilly shouted as she pointed a bony finger at them. “For they have killed the Baron.”
    The guard quickly slashed with his sword, ending the danger from the three invaders.
    Zandra held her father’s head cradled in her arms and rocked back and forth. She didn’t see the young man approach – the one her words had spared an evil death.
    “Grieve not, old one,” the youthful voice said, “for the Baron has served the village well and it will bear his name forever.”
    The village Tagg. His vision. Her father’s vision had revealed the name of their village. A walled city, next to forest and lake. Yes. That was it.
    “Who are you?” she asked the voice.
    “I am called Ochina. My father and I sell the fruits of the fields and the forests and the glens.”
    “Uncle!” the cry came from the doorway, cutting off more information. “Move off, old woman,” growled the newcomer, threatening with his drawn sword. He was breathing fiercely.
    Ochina drew his sword. “No, she is protecting him from them.” He nodded toward the slain priests.
    “Baron Tagg? Is he okay?” the man asked, breathing less labored. He’d been fighting. Sweat shone on his brow.
    Zandra pushed back her cape and revealed her true self.
    “Cousin,” the man said, surprised.
    A gasp came from Darryn. “I thought . . . “ he didn’t finish it. He knew better than to speak of Zandra’s capabilities.
    The man was Gandor, Zandra’s cousin by her father’s brother. He was next in line to become Duke, the new ruler of the village, but not like this. He was true and honest, and wouldn’t stoop to murder.
    “My lord Duke,” Ochina proclaimed, sheathing his sword. “I didn’t know thee.”
    Gandor approached Ochina and laid a hand upon his arm, then knelt beside Zandra.
    “He is dead,” she said simply.
    “Aarrrgh!” Gandor gave an extended cry of grief. Blinking back his sorrow, he looked at the dagger in Tagg’s bloody chest. The workmanship on the dagger – it was unmistakable. “Surrites! Darryn, seek them out. Kill all them for this evil deed.”
    Darryn nodded, “Aye, sire.” He dashed out the door, leaving only Gandor, Zandra, and Ochina behind.
    “You are Duke,” Zandra declared.
    Gandor looked up sharply. “And you are my cousin.”
    “But I have no claim.”
    “That is true,” he replied.
    Zandra and Gandor looked at each other for a moment. “May I beg of thee a room?” It was her only hope for shelter.
    “I cannot say,” Gandor replied. “I know not what to say.” It was a dilemma. She was of age and he had no claim on her, as he would have, had she been younger.
    “I will take thee to be my wife,” Ochina offered.
    Zandra snapped around, eyes locked on Ochina’s. Looking, looking, and seeing. In his eyes, his green eyes, so unlike her own brown. But his eyes, the eyes of Tiara, her daughter to be.
    He was holding out his hand. If she took it, it meant she accepted. Without hesitation, she reached up, took his hand, stood, and uttered, “It is done. As I stand, I accept thee to be my husband, for time eternal.”
    Gandor stood. “You know him?” he asked Zandra.
    “Only in my dreams,” she replied. “And in my father’s dreams. You and I shall be as one and I will bear but a single girl child. She shall marry a stranger, one who shall fulfill the ancient legends.”
    “It is so,” Ochina nodded in reply, his eyes only for her.
    “And it is done,” Gandor said. “I declare it so, as my first official act.”
    Zandra smiled at him and said, “And it shall not be your last.”

The Star Spawn novels were not the first I started. They were the result of figuring that I could do better – better than the inconsistencies that were becoming tradition within the Star Trek world of the Next Generation series.
    My first novel has since become the fourth novel in the Star Spawn saga. The story is no-tech – that is, it is not science fiction. It falls more into the fantasy genre, another area that I enjoy. This story started with a long-term Dungeons and Dragons game that was never finished.
    The short story was developed for the premier issue of a new e-mag called Dream Forge. It also sets up the original (and still unfinished) fourth novel that is simply known as “The Cleric.” Much credit is owed to Nathan Baker, who DM’d the short-lived DnD game, and provided some of the characters and names for the novel. While this story doesn't reflect the changes, I have changed the names in the Novel as his request.,,,,,
    For readers of the DnD genre, this story holds no surprises (neither will that novel). It is quite predictable in its nature, and yet sets up what is developing (at this writing) into an exciting action-adventure tale.
    This story now serves as the prolog to Star Spawn V: The Cleric.
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